Salacious secret of Guernsey laid bare

Here, in the room where I am standing, the greatest 19th Century French author scaled the summits of romantic writing and brought us back Les Miserables. The odd thing is I'm not in France, but the UK.

Guernsey is just 30 miles from the French mainland as le corbeau flies, but political exile Victor Hugo was as displaced from his homeland as Dickens would have been writing Nicholas Nickleby in Calais.

He returned the Guerns' generosity for taking him in. When the tourist board's inkwells run dry of inspiration, they open the file marked 'Yet more nice things Hugo said about Guernsey.' And as a tribute to his 15-year stay, he set a book, The Toilers Of The Sea, on the island, dedicating it to the Guerns.

When the musical Les Mis runs into the barricades at London's Palace Theatre, how about a roaring marine drama to take its place?

But back to Hugo's glass lookout at the top of Hauteville House, a steep walk up from the heart of St Peter Port. Whenever the sun was shining, he peeled everything off, poured a jug of water over his head and sat down to compose the adventures of Valjean and Gavroche in the altogether. Tourists flocked to the house to glimpse the Full Monty routine.

This year is the 200th anniversary of Hugo's birth. It's the anniversary the Guerns have been waiting for since a government bright spark turned down the offer to have Bergerac filmed there - rivals Jersey took it instead.

Now Guerns can mock their neighbours for throwing Hugo out after three years. The writer won acclaim in France before being expelled for his politics and reached Jersey, via London. But Guernsey cornered the best of the Hugo story - he spent some of his most productive years here, from 1855 to 1870.

They do one of the biggest statues of the writer anywhere - he stands in Candie Gardens, head-on to the wind, coat billowing, fedora in hand.

Apart from his books, his achievement is his house which is like a banquet set against rich dark wood, plush wallpaper, Gobelin tapestries and recycled furniture. An old door is a table, a chair back serves as a lintel, cotton reels double as candle-holders in a chandelier. And in a clear sign of his enormous self-regard, the writer even signed his initials in Delft tiles. I admired his massive billiard table, red room decorated with chinoiserie, the guest bed where Alexandre Dumas slept and his shrine to his ancestors - he dabbled in spiritualism.

But there's sadness here, too. His daughter ran away to Canada pursuing a doomed love affair, then died in a Paris asylum. His wife gave up the struggle against loneliness and Hugo's affair with Juliette Drouet, whom he installed in a house down the hill, and quit the island.

Today the island (population: 60,000) is easing up on dairy cows for something more lucrative. On the flight over I admired the passengers' expensive shoes. Many were flying in for the new banking and financial services.

Where else outside the City of London or Isle of Man would a pub be called The Banker's Draught? The new building for Barings Bank - the casualty brought down by Nick Leeson and now owned by a Dutch company - is under contruction. In St Peter Port's tiny shopping centre the camera stores are evidence of a benign tax regime.

Along with the rest of the Channel Islands, Guernsey was the only part of the UK occupied in the war. I wish we had a day of celebration to match the fun they have on Liberation Day, May 9. To mark the event they commissioned an obelisk which casts a shadow that skims the edge of a bench only on that day and at the time the German surrender was signed.

Guernsey doesn't have to work too hard at being different. There is the antieuro patriot's dream, fistfuls of bright green Guernsey pound notes they delight in handing over as change. Then there are the car licence plates, in numbers only. I spotted 999 and 1066.

They recently introduced 15 mph limits down many lanes. Well, it keeps the dents out of the top-of-the-range BMWs I kept meeting.

We trailed around the island, pausing at Cobo Bay, where rocks stand like exclamation marks and where Hugo used to picnic with his family. Some tourism people will tell you it's where Hugo would cast off his clothes for a skinny dip.

I made a last tour of the harbour, under the 12th Century castle, and noticed a particularly lavish yacht, Fortune's Star, or possibly Star's Fortune. Plenty of those pass through.

And so to eat. One good thing about being so close to France is that it isn't far for accomplished chefs to come, and Guernsey underpins its appeal as a shortvisit attraction with tasty restaurants.

There is some serious money on this island, but they don't seem to have put their prices up in sympathy.

Getting there

For information contact Guernsey Tourist Board on 01481 723552 or www. guernseytouristboard.com British European Airlines (08705 676676) fly out of Gatwick from £68.60 return, Birmingham from £99 and Edinburgh from £110. Rates at Old Government House Hotel (01481 724921), St Peter Port, start at £90 B&B per night.